Soccer coach accused in child porn case set to go on trial

February 01, 2010|By Nick Madigan | nick.madigan@baltsun.com

A Middle River soccer coach accused of soliciting a 14-year-old girl for sex is scheduled to go to trial on Tuesday.

Charles Louis Friedel, 33, was arrested last summer after police detectives assumed the identity of the girl and arranged a meeting at a convenience store. Friedel, a resident of Hunting Fields Road in Middle River, was charged with solicitation of child pornography, sexual solicitation of a minor and distribution of obscene matter to a minor.

Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger, who formerly headed the child-abuse unit of the office he now heads, is prosecuting the case.

Court documents say that Friedel sent sexually explicit pictures of himself and asked the girl to send him similar pictures of herself. He later attempted to meet the girl at a Royal Farms store, police said.